A computer network or data network is a telecommunications network which allows computers to exchange data. In computer networks, networked computing devices exchange data with each other along network links or data connections. Service chaining enables network operators to create what are essentially catalogs of network resources and related policies (like QoS parameters and bandwidth) to which network traffic can be applied as they move onto the network.
Service chaining involves delivering a list of services in connection with selected traffic in a specific order. A network node that selects, or classifies, the traffic is referred to as a “classifier.” Services are delivered in service nodes where the actual forwarding path used to realize the service chaining is referred to as a “service path.” Overlay networks provide a chassis on which to deploy services and adaptive middleware enables dynamic instantiation and configuration of distributed service components. Overlay service composition is particularly useful in distributed processing of data streams. Currently, some service paths are realized in the form of overlays, which stretch within the network infrastructure or between any of the structure and service nodes. In other words, overlays extend from the classifier to the service node and from service node to service node. The overlays are in the form of transportation encapsulation, such as UDP, GRE/NVGRE, VLXAN, SNAP, etc., carrying the original traffic to be serviced as payloads.
Flow offload is a function that occurs when a service node is not interested in the packets of the flow and requests the infrastructure to handle the flow on its behalf. Once offloaded, the infrastructure bypasses the service node for the life of the flow, thereby shortening the service path for that flow. This shortening of the service path improves the performance of its service delivery for that flow. Currently, this shortening is limited to bypassing the service node at its closest node in the infrastructure, such as the switch to which the service node is connected.
The FIGURES of the drawings are not necessarily drawn to scale, as their dimensions can be varied considerably without departing from the scope of the present disclosure.